Mystery: Mr. Witch and Ms. Hunter

Chapter 221 Good boy

"What did you say..."

Before Rayleigh could react, Adele appeared in front of him like a ghost, grabbed Rayleigh's hair and dragged him down the stairs.

Then Adele kicked Riley into the room and slammed the door shut.

"Say hello to your brother."

Adele did not turn off the lantern, so Rayleigh could also see his father's body in the basement, as well as the creature between a human and a fungus that slowly stood up from the body. The other party discovered this brother whom he had never met, and he looked obviously easier to bully than the woman just now, and let out an excited roar.

Before Rayleigh could react, he was knocked to the ground by the monster. Densely packed tiny air roots stretched out of the monster's mouth and pierced into his delicate neck.

This statement is actually not accurate, because this monster does not only have tiny aerial roots and hyphae in its mouth, but most of its facial details except for the body frame are made up of hyphae and aerial roots. They are intertwined and overlapped with each other, forming a complex spatial structure, and there is no skin covering the outside, so those fine folds are exposed to the air.

"Aaaaaaaaaaa!"

Rayleigh screamed.

He once thought that his mutated father was the nightmare of his life, but the mushroom man he saw today was ten or even a hundred times more terrifying than his father. Moreover, on the face made of dense mycelium, he could vaguely recognize his father's iconic high forehead and high nose bridge. Except for the lack of skin and protruding eyes, he was almost exactly the same as his father.

Rayleigh struggled, trying to shake off the horrible monster, but no matter how he kicked and screamed, the monster's aerial roots still penetrated deeply into his body, and like earthworms, slowly drilled in and out of his skin, stitching him and the monster's body together bit by bit.

The pain only appeared for a moment and then disappeared, replaced by a maddening tingling sensation and a depraved weird pleasure. Rayleigh felt his consciousness slowly fading away.

Rayleigh's fingernails were covered with a muddy substance mixed with broken hyphae and rotten flesh and blood. Those were the body remnants he had grabbed from the monster. However, this could not stop the other party's actions. He let out a "ho ho" gasp from his broken throat, and his body gradually lost strength due to lack of oxygen and excessive blood loss.

Just then, the tightly closed door opened.

Rayleigh looked up instinctively, but only saw a blurry figure sitting in the light. Although her face was no longer clear in Rayleigh's gradually shriveled eyes, he somehow detected a look of compassion on that face.

"You are already beyond help, but there is still something you can do in the last few seconds of your life."

Adele spoke softly, without any need for acting, her body, vocal cords and spirit moved almost on their own.

A black flame burned quietly two meters in front of Rayleigh. The shining spiritual light allowed Rayleigh, who was not a Beyonder, to sense the quietly burning flame.

"Touch this flame, and it will completely consume you and your brother."

Adele sang in a sing-song voice, "I don't know if this can erase your sins, but at least it's a punishment that fits."

"Or do nothing and let him consume you. Maybe in this way, he can help you spread the pain. This is what you have been doing before."

Adele spread out her palms, letting the sunlight flow evenly down her sides.

"Choose. Do you want to continue as you did before and pass on the pain, or do you want to make a small change before you die?"

Change……

This word means different things to different people, and the difficulty of making changes is also different. Maybe Rayleigh has his own unique life experience, and maybe it is these experiences that have brought him to where he is today, but Adele has no way of knowing these, and she doesn't care.

To Adele, if someone did something wrong, he should be punished. She only gave the person a chance to repent. Whether he repented or not was within her expectations. This was the fate of the witch before the priest appeared.

Perhaps for Riley, it took him a long time to make a decision in his heart, but for Adele, it only took two seconds for Riley to make the last choice in his life.

Rayleigh crawled forward with difficulty, stretched out his hands tremblingly, and hugged the black flame in the bright place tightly in his arms, as if he was embracing something beautiful that he had given up with his own hands.

The black flames suddenly expanded and spread upward along Rayleigh's body, engulfing the seams of flesh and the flesh that connected them, and also rescuing Rayleigh from the false pleasure brought by the mushroom secretions, making him feel the long-lost pain again.

However, Rayleigh didn't have the energy to care about these things. Surrounded by black flames, he almost used up all his strength to barely raise his head again and look at the end of the passage.

Then, the witch at the end of the passage smiled gently, reminding Rayleigh of his long-deceased mother.

Before the black fire spread along Rayleigh's arms and over his entire body, Adele reached out and gently touched his tousled hair.

"What a good kid."

……

The hand moved away, leaving more black flames behind, drowning out Rayleigh's peaceful expression of having found his home. Being burned by black flames was not a peaceful way to die, but his expression was unusually calm.

Adele closed the door again, allowing the wave of black flames to sweep across the room, eliminating any remaining bacteria or other sources of contamination.

She felt somewhat relieved by Rayleigh's choice. In fact, no matter what Rayleigh chose, she would never allow him to turn into a monster and attack ordinary people in Indo Port.

What's more, there are Frank's mushrooms here. If we leave them alone, I'm afraid that when Vinata and Sophie come back, all the men in Indo Port will be pregnant with children with mushroom caps...

Adele felt creepy just thinking about that scene.

“…The only destination is peace.”

Adele prayed softly and tapped her chest four times. About twenty minutes later, she pushed the door open again.

At the foot of the door, Rayleigh's broken body fell to the ground, his spirit completely burned out. The monster on his body, which was purely born of spirit, also disappeared, leaving behind grayish-white dust, which was gently lifted up by the airflow when the door opened, like a small snowflake.

(End of this chapter)